October 22, 2012

Last week, in honor of Evaluate Your Life Day, we published an issue that will help you do just that. There we point you toward some wonderful books--mostly narratives--that offer us wisdom on living life, on facing dying, on making the most of the time we have, and achieving the things we dreamed of doing when we were young.
The first book, Howard's Gift, will not only introduce you to Howard Stevensen, the Harvard Business School professor whose wisdom and mentorship is the focus of this biography by one of his former students, but also opens the door to a number of other books that encourage you to live life with intention, and face mortality with grace. It is serious 'business' to be sure, but uplifting as well, because it reminds us to be grateful and stay focused on what is truly important. Books recommended here are:
Howard's Gift by Eric Sinoway
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Chasing Daylight by Eugene O'Kelly
How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clay Christensen
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
The second, Search Inside Yourself, by Google's Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan, offers you “methods for developing…an extraordinarily capable mind” and the books that follow give you two other options for discovering how to make both long-term strategic plans for your life, as well as how to brighten each day of your life by focusing on the small, sometimes most tangible, things.
Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
Strategy For You by Rich Horwath
Design Your Self by Karim Rashid

Ultimately, we took a look at this topic for one reason. While many of us plan our careers, not as many of us pay much attention to strategizing our lives as a whole. Yet the truth is, our whole lives *are* our business, so we should attend to them as carefully.Join us over at KnowledgeBlocks for this new exploration that matters to everyone, because Your Life is Your Business.